Abstract:

Maintaining long-term relationships with citizens through the Internet is a key element in order to implement electronic government successfully. For this reason, we suggest that, once accessibility to the websites developed by the public sector is guaranteed, an e-government strategy should be based on promoting the citizens’ commitment to the online relationship with the government. More specifically, we propose a theoretical model to explain the citizens’ commitment generation process. Specifically, we consider that trust placed by the citizen in the websites developed by the public sector is the main antecedent of the citizens’ affective commitment to this online relationship. Furthermore, citizen satisfaction in previous online relations with the government, perceived reputation and perceived usability of those websites are considered the main antecedents of trust.